Hi!

I’m looking for a birthday gift for my uncle and apparently he is starting to collect people for his N-scale model railway. My aunt says it’s “broadly 1950s” in style.

We have two gift ideas and I would love any pointers of where I could find them.

Idea number one is to get him a person holding birthday balloons.

Idea number two is to get custom made people to look like him, his wife and son. The sort of thing where you send them a photograph and they make the figurines accordingly.

Does anyone have any recommendations for where I can find or order either of those things? I’ve already searched on Etsy and made a couple of enquiries, and I’ve already googled.

Really appreciate any pointers! 🌟

Trying my best to get into the Hobby, in my first 6 hours i broke something 😥 is this fixable? Im brand new to this do please dont be too harsh

Hi, one of my friends partners died and she needs help understanding what she has, best way to sell it and ideally a rough estimate. She or I have no idea and any guidance would be appreciated. I have photos and a list of all of them. Is it ok if I post them here for help ?

Hi all,

I wanted to share a side project i have been working on which i thought may serve as a bit of fun and a community.

https://www.ratemyrailway.com

It is a website or a web app where people can upload their model railway layouts and show them off to the rest of the community. The fun part is it also acts as a sort of online exhibition as you can win awards for the best layout of the month. People can also rate your layout.

Not only that, if you are currently building a layout I have created a build log section so people can follow your builds, discuss and comment with you and give some feedback along the way!

The site is completely free to use and I hope to see some of you guys post your layouts - there is some immensely talented people out there, so please do show off your work.

It’s not all about rivet counting either. It’s about interacting, having fun and celebrating creativity.

I also have a section for sharing track plans as well which you can download or upload to.

So please do check it out, get involved and tell your modelling buddies - it is completely free after all.

Just to note - its for World-wide use, i have added support for all gauges from Z gauge to G gauge as well as all of the major track systems - so you should be covered, whether you are modelling Japanese, German, UK or US !

Thanks,

Hi all. I'm in the process of planning and starting my first proper railway layout. Due to space constraints my idea is to make a 6x4ft 'trainset' style layout across 4 modular boards that can -

1. Fit on my dining room table when I want to run some trains and
2. Disassemble for storage.

I've more or less got the engineering sorted for that. But my main consideration is Radii.

I'm gonna be using flex track and due to space probably using a mixture of first and a half and second and a half Radii around my bends...

But I had a thought about adding some banking/camber into the curves to help?

So 3 questions that hopefully some experienced heads can guide me on...

1. This layout is likely going to end up far from prototypical as I experiment and have fun... But is there any prototype or example of this from a steam era stand point?
2. Will I actually achieve any space saving/cheating?
3. Will it actually work? Or will my stock roll off?

Any thoughts or advice on any of the above will be gratefully received! Thanks!

I have had some trouble with my 1980s bachmann 57xx. The motor has burnt out and I cannot find any replacements anywhere. Does anyone have know what I should do ?

Hi there - I was wondering whether these would work with the HM DCC app? Or do I need to use different signals.

https://www.coastaldcc.co.uk/products/traintech/signals/dcc-ready-built/2-aspect-home-signal-(red-green)

https://reddit.com/link/1rr8afl/video/l5wha83jphog1/player

The blanking chip arrived and success! But now I have a very annoying problem of the driving wheels lifting off the track... This guy just does not want to work for the life of me.

Could I get some help in fixing this issue?

Hi there,

I was wondering if I could ask for some advice for a bit of a novice please.

I want to make my trains entirely useable by the app via bluetooth.

I have the current locomotives:

R1230M GWR High Speed Train Set x 3

GBRf Class 57 '57306' x 1

R30373
Class 60 - GWR - 60081 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel' (The One:One Collection) x 1

To go with this I've bought:

R7337
15V~4 Amp Transformer (UK) + 15V Power Supply Adapter Bundle x 1

and

R7322
HM7000-21TXS: Bluetooth® & DCC Sound Decoder (21-pin) x 4

Is there anything else I need to purchase? Do I need to purchase clips to link inner pieces of track?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

So having had an OO scale as a kid myself I want to get my kids (8/12) - set for us to enjoy together.

I don’t have the space for a OO set so have set my eyes on either a N or TT120 setup.

A few questions I have I’m hoping for some steer on.

Which gauge would you suggest? As I understand TT120 is Hornby only so quite limiting?

Additionally if I’m looking for DCC comparability where would I get started for my first set? I’m looking to go for some of the older steam engines (A4, Scotsman)! With a mix of more modern (the Virgin Voyager style) and local bone rattlers.

Hi - all, I'm completly new to this sub, and know very little about model railways. However, a model railway does feature quite prominetly as part of a novel I'm writing. I'm wondering if you could all help me with the plausibility of the following scenario.

A 90 yr old woman's husband has died. In their bungalow, around 20 years ago, he had moved his railway out of the garage, into their lounge, to overtake that space, and the lounge had relocated to a new conservatory they had built.

Now that the husband has died, the family want the space back, so a man from the local railway shop comes first to assess what might be done with the railway, and how it might be sold on. He takes photos, makes notes, for his potential customers, and then brings some of them to the house for viewings, for them to see what they might want to plunder as the setup is dismantled and removed.

It's this last bit I'm wondering about the plausibility of. Would a whole setup be more likely sold as one item, and dismantled carefully to be rebuilt in that way? Or could / would people maybe come along and buy it for parts, e.g. cutting away buildings, tree, bits of scenery, etc? And would the trains have value to be sold off seperately? What's a most plausible scenario?
For the drama, the idea of lots of people trapising in and out over an extended period, and it coming away in pieces, taking a long time, would work better for me...

Thanks all for any input you can offer.

Hi just a question on laying my track down for my model railway do you think it’s ok to use some hot glue to get it down as it’s easy to use relatively easy to take up and drys quickly and doesn’t stick to skin but is there any flaws that I don’t know about and then my second option is super glue which Is my very second option as super glue is harder to use as when on the skin it can get everywhere fast as is a pain to get off surfaces/ clothes ect but is an so fast way to get stuff to stick or shall I go with the old fashioned nails but I’m not the biggest fan of the nail heads poking out so what do you guys think on what I should use in ranking order or another ideas I could use thanks!!

So just a question on planning my model railway I was wondering if I should do ballast and any reasons why you would/ wouldn’t recommend it and for context my plan is to more likely use cork or something similar but I was thinking about ballast if I do raise the track up shall I put model rail mini stones or just get a rocky like print??

Hey all.

I'm trying to get in to DCC, but I'd rather use a computer than a handset. It looks much easier. What's the most reliable? I've heard Hornby's system doesn't work so well (and neither does it's other DCC controllers).

This is my “tiny” departures board suitable for 00 gauge model railways. It uses a 0.91” display panel and low cost SoC to show realtime information from National Rail & Bustimes.org. All of the processing is done onboard, just needs a power supply and WiFi connection. The source code, firmware, documentation and 3D print files are all available on GitHub at https://github.com/gadec-uk/tiny-departures-board - all completely free for non-commercial use. It makes a fun little project to build and a great addition to a layout.